Jean Willes

'Jean Willes' (qv) is best known for her roles in a number of B-movies in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as on the small screen. Lovely and curvaceous, she usually played hard-boiled gold-diggers, party girls, gun molls, and saloon girls. She came off as a wily, smarter version of 'Barbara Nichols' (qv) or 'Iris Adrian' (qv), and although she was versatile, she never rose to the first tier of stardom; in retrospect, she seems to have been capable of much more than she was given during her three-decade-plus career.Born in Los Angeles on April 15, 1923, she raised in Utah and in Seattle. Interested in an acting career, she returned to the town of her birth and in 1942 started showing up in comedy film shorts for Columbia under her birth name. She was a smart and sexy foil to, among others, such enjoyable comics as 'Harry Langdon' (qv), 'Andy Clyde' (qv), 'Eddie Foy Jr.' (qv), 'Joe DeRita' (qv), 'Sterling Holloway' (qv), and 'Hugh Herbert' (qv). After bit parts in such feature-length films as _So Proudly We Hail! (1943)_ (qv), _Here Come the Waves (1944)_ (qv), and _Salty O'Rourke (1945)_ (qv), she began earning co-star status in such post-war feature-length programmers as _Revenue Agent (1950)_ (qv) opposite 'Douglas Kennedy' (qv), in _A Yank in Indo-China (1952)_ (qv), and in one of 'Johnny Weissmuller' (qv)'s "Jungle Jim" outings.Willes became a cheesecake fixture in Hollywood, and film and TV work was steady. But when she was lucky enough to score a role in an "A" film, she was barely glimpsed, as in the 'Bob Hope' (qv) comedy _Son of Paleface (1952)_ (qv) and the "Best Picture" war epic _From Here to Eternity (1953)_ (qv). She had the most screen time in an "A" film as Dr. Miles Bennell ('Kevin McCarthy' (qv))'s beautiful nurse and, if you read between the lines, former paramour, in the sci-fi cult classic, _Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)_ (qv). (SPOILER: She succumbs to the aliens, like everyone else aside from Bennell, in the fictional California town of Santa Mira.) She was one of the four women vying for an aging 'Clark Gable' (qv)'s attentions in _The King and Four Queens (1956)_ (qv), one of his lesser efforts. Guest spots on TV gave her greater visibility, and she was frequently seen in westerns (_The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955)_ (qv), _Maverick (1957)_ (qv)) and crime dramas (_Perry Mason (1957)_ (qv)), usually playing unsympathetic women although occasionally playing more agreeable or respectable characters. Her last feature films roles were in _McHale's Navy (1964)_ (qv), _The Cheyenne Social Club (1970)_ (qv) and _Bite the Bullet (1975)_ (qv). After a few more TV roles, she retired in 1976.Willes died of liver cancer on January 3, 1989 at the age of 65. Her second husband, NFL football player 'Gerard Cowhig' (qv), died at their Van Nuys, California, home in 1995. They had one son, Gerry.::Gary Brumburgh / [email protected]